A Good/Bad kind of Stuck

I’ve been dwelling on the part of Scripture in 2 Peter that says “his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…For this very reason make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love, for if you posses these qualities in increasing measure they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive…” That’s a lot to chew on and a good place to get stuck.

I love that his power has given us not only everything we need for godliness, but also for life. That means help with the tasks of the day, the people at work, the patients in my care and so much more. He has given me all that I need. He is Enough.

I also like that here is the answer from being ineffective and unproductive. If I were to ask the common churchgoer and even you how one could be more effective and productive in the kingdom, we all might answer something along the lines of pray more, give more, serve more, do more. Isn’t that true? But Peter says “be” more knowing that the better we “be” the better we “do.” Interesting.

Let’s look at this. Honestly, would you add “self-control” as a means of being more effective and productive? Or what about “goodness”? It’s a good thing, but it is the last thing, well maybe next-to-last after self-control of things we would put on a list to increase effectiveness and productivity. But let’s look at it a different way. How effective and productive would we be if we added unbelief, badness, ignorance, indulgence, weakness, ungodliness and selfishness to our lives? We could maybe still get a lot done, but it wouldn’t be worth anything. And it probably wouldn’t be beneficial.

I’m still thinking on these. I’m still stuck on this Scripture. But again, it’s a good thing.